Russ, is it possible for you to post a short summary of your findings thus far? I'm having trouble mentally collating the various posts, and integrating them into a clear conclusion. (And I'm not saying the conclusion has to be bold or irrefutable - just clear.)

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Ideally they'd [...] but with ten subjects, that'd put them down at... two people per group.

... and that's one of the problems with small N. Aside from the Law of Large Numbers upon which we all depend, there's just no way to design an experiment that carves up confounding factors unless there's enough N to go around.

Originally Posted by TheRuss

I hesitate to say that some questions are too obvious to pay for a study to answer them, what with the whole conventional wisdom that heavier objects fall faster, but it'd just about knock me out of my chair if things were less clear-cut than they appear.

Once in awhile I see something so surprising that I'm glad they toss money at seemingly obvious questions.

Originally Posted by TheRuss

Palmitic acid is the primary metabolic signal to switch from glucose burning to fat burning.

I haven't been able to find any citations to this effect... actually, I've never heard anything like this before at all. Is this familiar to anyone else here?

It has been known for decades that low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets can increase plasma triglyceride levels, but the mechanism for this effect has been uncertain. Recently, new isotopic and nonisotopic methods have been used to determine in vivo whether low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets increase triglyceride levels by stimulating fatty acid synthesis. The results of a series of studies in lean and obese weight-stable volunteers showed that very-low-fat (10%), high-carbohydrate diets enriched in simple sugars increased the fraction of newly synthesized fatty acids, along with a proportionate increase in the concentration of plasma triglyceride. Furthermore, the concentration of the saturated fatty acid, palmitate, increased and the concentration of the essential polyunsaturated fatty acid, linoleate, decreased in triglyceride and VLDL triglyceride. The magnitude of the increase in triglyceride varied considerably among subjects, was unrelated to sex, body mass index, or insulin levels, and was higher when fatty acid synthesis was constantly elevated rather than having a diurnal variation. It was notable that minimal stimulation of fatty acid synthesis occurred with higher fat diets (>30%) or with 10% fat diets enriched in complex carbohydrate. Public health recommendations to reduce dietary fat must take into account the distinct effects of different types of carbohydrate that may increase plasma triglycerides and fatty acid synthesis in a highly variable manner. The mediators and health consequences of this dietary effect deserve further study.

That's downregulation of glucose uptake, but I'm not seeing any upregulation of fat oxidation there.

I also disapprove of his hypothetical graph, even if I'm guilty of doing the same thing. I'd be more comfortable with it if he provided a source for the four-hour lag time between carbohydrate ingestion and palmitic acid synthesis.

I'm basically onboard with the inflammation hypothesis - it's the SFA overflow part that's got me thinking. If, as the wording suggests, the overflow hits adipocytes first, then skeletal muscle, then we have a candidate mechanism for inducing selective insulin resistance (in fat, but not muscle). We'd just have to quantify it.

... palmitic acid is the initial fatty acid produced during lipogenesis; all the longer fatty acids are made of it. I was recommending the papers to which he links in that post more than the post itself.

“Most people do not do, but take refuge in theory and talk, thinking that they will become good in this way” -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II.4

Dear Russ,
I don't know if you still accept random topics of discussion but I have one I'd like to pick your brain about. I've been reading the tmuscle forum, and it seems like the new hip thing is getting rid of the old, time-tested, post-workout shake, and instead move it to before and during the workout.
Of course, the only people that know about this phenomenon are at the tmuscle and they just so happen to have a series of products designed for this (that costs $250/month!). Are these people really full of **** or on to something?

Dear Russ,
I don't know if you still accept random topics of discussion but I have one I'd like to pick your brain about. I've been reading the tmuscle forum, and it seems like the new hip thing is getting rid of the old, time-tested, post-workout shake, and instead move it to before and during the workout.
Of course, the only people that know about this phenomenon are at the tmuscle and they just so happen to have a series of products designed for this (that costs $250/month!). Are these people really full of **** or on to something?

I've done creatine + protein both before and after workouts, mostly just for the Hell of it. Getting them headed into the bloodstream in advance sounds like a good idea. I don't have any research to back that up, though.

My sentiments on pre-workout carbs are over here. As far as I'm concerned, the whole thing stinks to high heaven.

My question for you is this, though:
-Glucose should be less than four bucks a pound.
-Fancy-ass hydrolyzed whey is maybe eighteen bucks a pound.
-Creatine is eight or nine bucks a pound.

Where the Hell does the rest of your $250 go? Are they crushing up diamonds and having you snort 'em?

This should surprise absolutely no one, but today I tried mixing whipping cream with chocolate-flavoured milk protein isolate for a pre-bed shake, and it tasted a lot better than the olive oil/flaxseed oil blend. I think I'm going to stick to getting my flaxseed oil from milled flax.